You were pretty close honestly. Bear is hit-and-miss. It's tough meat to begin with, but you then have to overcook it to get rid of parasites and shit. It also heavily depends on the bear's diet. Blueberries are much better than fish. Beaver meat is usually pretty gross. They've had it at almost every game dinner I've been to (probably around 50) and I think I've enjoyed it maybe 10% of the time. It's greasy as shit and also really brings out the flavor of eating bugs and chewing wood in a swamp.
Bear is all about the long slow cook... it's almost like a brisket. If you try and cook it like a steak, you might as well use it to resole your old shoes. A long, slow braise is the ideal way I've found. And to your point, it is, by far, the most sensitive meat I've eaten whereby it tastes like what it eats. You do NOT want to eat a dump bear, regardless of how it was prepared. Anything that is feeding on berries and lovely aromatics is very tasty. I've found that the best way to eat bear is as slow cooked meatballs, with a bunch of added herbs and some other meats in the mix. On it's own, as a roast or steak, not so much. Not bad, but it's not like I'm jonesin' for it again soon.
It was mentioned last year(?)... basically you take the stuffing and bake them like muffins... fucking tasty.
You know what? If THIS is my only lasting legacy to this place, I'm okay with it. Better than being known as the guy who enjoyed shoving a hairbrush up their backside, or the person who is regularly clogging their toilet because they birthed an ass-baby. Or Rush.
Yeah I think this year they cooked it roast-style, but it still seemed very dried out. Moose on the other hand is phenomenal. That didn't have a "special" this year, but the last one I went to had buffalo. The year before that they had Axis Deer, which is absolutely delicious. Other times they've had fried alligator, caribou and kangaroo. Kangaroo kind of sucks.
Widest spectrum of game I've ever sampled was in Nairobi... in a restaurant called The Carnivore. https://tamarind.co.ke/carnivore/ They had this huge bbq pit right as you walked in, and the waiters walked around with huge spits of meat that they sliced off onto your plate as you wanted. The variety was insane... ostrich meat, crocodile, kangaroo, etc. Probably 20 different types of meat to try. It was a hell of an experience.
The stuffin muffin sounds like a great idea, but doing some napkin math, it seems like I'd need to make almost 75 of them to equal a double recipe of a standard 13*9 pan? I ain't got that many muffin tins.
I use the same amount that I would put in a 9x13 pan and it makes about 14-16 muffins, and that's if I'm being generous on the size of each muffin. I did a double batch this year and ended up with 27 muffins. Are you making muffins for ants?
There's a guy by the name of Hicks Openers that does 3D printed openers in conjunction with this site. You have to join their VIP membership to get access to the best ones, but they do occasionally have ones on the site that are open to non VIP members. I honestly don't drink much bottled beer these days, but these things are so well done, they're more like pieces of functional collectible art. I've gotten 4 different ones for myself at this point and have bought 4 or 5 more to give to others as gifts.
Google says a standard muffin tin has a diameter of 2 inches per muffin, and thus a radius of 1 inch. 9in*13in = 117 in^2 pi*1in^2 = 3.14 in^2 117in^2/3.14in^2 = 37 If we assume the sides are sloped, and go from 2 inches at the bottom to 3.25 inches at the top (maximally packed in a 10x13 pan), that still requires 21 muffins equivalent per 9x13 pan.
You're throwing a lot of autistic looking numbers at me, and I don't know what any of that means, so here's my recipe that I ended up doubling for this year. 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter 1 cup chopped celery 1/2 cup diced onion 1/2 cup chopped carrot 1 tsp dried thyme 3/4 tsp poultry seasoning 1/2 tsp seasoned salt 1/4 tsp ground black pepper 6 cups dry bread cubes 2 cups chicken stock Melt butter in a large pot on medium heat. Add celery, onion, and carrot and cook until soft; approx 5 mins. Stir in thyme, poultry seasoning, seasoned salt, and pepper for about 30 seconds. Add in bread cubes and broth; stir until well mixed. Spoon into greased muffin tins (or use silicone inserts like @bewildered does) pressing down so each cup is well filled. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until heated through and exterior is lightly browned and crispy.
For comparison, here is the Bon Appetit recipe for dressing that uses more of everything I listed above and still only uses a 9x13 pan, so your math just ain't mathin.
My halved stuffing recipe with 1 loaf of bread made 18 muffins and a small 6" casserole pan. So it was probably enough for 24 muffins.